


Turn My Blue Heart to Red

by thereweregiants



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Modern AU, Sickfic, a surprising amount of food, a variety of untagged and vaguely alluded to relationships, p much everyone is friends and everyone is fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereweregiants/pseuds/thereweregiants
Summary: They're just friends, okay? Angela really doesn't have time to drop everything and take care of Jesse.Except of course that's what she does.Damnit.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Comments: 15
Kudos: 37





	Turn My Blue Heart to Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eastwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eastwood/gifts).



> slightly belated for eastwood <3
> 
> I was always taught to show love through cooking, which is my only explanation for how much food ended up in here, I swear I didn't mean for it to be that way. also I might have just been hungry when I wrote it *shrug*. the sopa recipe is legit though, I promise
> 
> title from Robert Palmer's ["Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlPHmYtqSdA) because shut up I'm funny  
> written mostly to the National's Sleep Well Beast

In the end, Angela blames the basil chicken.

Specifically the basil chicken with a side of pineapple fried rice from that Thai restaurant across town, the one just a street over from the physical therapy clinic Jesse works at, the only place that actually gets it properly spicy. Angela isn’t thinking about much besides her exhaustion and her stomach when she texts Jesse, tells him that she’ll call in and pay for her chicken and his usual if he’s willing to bring it over. 

An hour and a half and three unanswered calls go by before there’s finally a rattling knock on her door. Jesse is blown in on a gust of wind and sleet, slipping on the doormat before he catches himself with a wet hand sliding on the wall.

“What on earth happened to you?” Angela asks, keeping him dripping where he is with a steadying hand. The last thing she needs is him slipping on the hardwood and destroying her house and no doubt himself.

“Genji’s out of town, took the truck. Had to take the bus over.” The words are muffled by a scarf, little visible of Jesse’s face but for a red nose and some damp hair under a damper hat.

“You should have called, I would have come and picked you up,” Angela says, gently reproachful as she starts to help peel off his many layers. 

Once his sodden coat comes off, Jesse fumbles his phone out of a pocket. “Rain got to it,” he says as he peers at the dead hunk of electronics. Angela tugs it out of his fingers, murmuring about rice before telling him to make a pile of his wet things, she’ll get a towel.

She comes back to find him shivering in threadbare boxers, skin pebbling with goosebumps. Clicking the thermostat up a few degrees, Angela wraps him up and they shuffle into her room. She roots through her drawers, finds a pair of sweatpants that he’d left here at some point and an oversized shirt she uses to sleep in. 

Jesse sits there docilely as she dries his hair with the towel, turning it into tangled fluff that’s longer than her own at this point. “You need a haircut,” she tells him as he pulls the shirt on, and he shrugs unconcernedly in response. 

“Food’s all cold, sorry,” Jesse says as Angela snags the bag on the way to the kitchen. 

She shrugs, turns the oven on low. “It’ll reheat okay.” His wet clothes go into the dryer, after a pause she throws his shoes in as well with a few dryer sheets stuffed inside. Couldn’t hurt, in any event.

Jesse plops himself down on the couch to wait, tugging Angela down onto his lap with a yelp as she tries to walk by. She struggles for a moment before relaxing, one of his arms between her back and the arm of the couch, a broad hand spread on her thigh. As the television quietly plays some episode of Grey’s Anatomy she doesn’t remember putting on, Angela tucks her head in the space beneath Jesse’s chin, making a face as her hair gets caught on stubble. 

Sometimes when he comes over it’s a passionate, fast thing - Jesse holding Angela up against a wall or bending her over the kitchen table or getting bent over himself. Days like that it’s because Angela lost a patient or Jesse argued with Gabriel, some kind of stress that they’re able to work out on each other. That’s not why his number has somehow crept up towards the top of her speed dial, though - it’s times like this. His heartbeat vibrating on her shoulder, the scrape of his Adam’s apple as he swallows against her cheek, his thumb mindlessly brushing back and forth over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.

A rumble of thunder shakes the apartment building and Angela tilts her head back, presses a kiss to the vulnerable skin of Jesse’s throat. She feels the breath catch under her lips, and the next kiss has a bit of skin snagged gently between her teeth.

“Not that -” Jesse shifts slightly in his seat, Angela can feel him under her thighs slowly perking up, “I’m not interested, but I’m tired as hell, Ange. Not good for much tonight.”

Angela stands, steadies herself with a hand on Jesse’s shoulder as she pushes her sleep shorts down, one side then the other. When she sits back down she’s straddling Jesse, one less bit of fabric between them. Long fingers smooth back where his beard has gotten out of order, trace over the bruised delicate skin underneath his tired eyes, slide across damp cheekbones that still have a few fading summer freckles. “Let me take care of you,” she says before pressing a slow, soft kiss to his chapped lips. 

When Jesse blinks his way out of the kiss he has a crooked smile on his face. “You can do anything you want, darlin’,” he says, hands already settled at her waist and absently stroking along the waistband of her underwear.

They make out like the teenagers they definitely aren’t anymore, ignoring the beep of the oven as it tells them it’s preheated. Angela leans back to catch her breath, realizes how hard she’s been grinding down on Jesse’s lap and how uncomfortable it’s getting for both of them. 

She sits up just enough to pull his borrowed sweatpants and boxers to his knees before reaching down the side of the couch and hoping that - yes, there’s still a box of condoms shoved there from god knows when. A minute later Angela’s tugging her underwear to the side and sinking down, and cold as he might be elsewhere, Jesse is burning hot where he slides into her.

With a mental thanks thrown out to the yoga classes Fareeha keeps dragging her to, Angela’s long, pale thighs flex, letting her feel every inch in and every inch out. They make an attempt at kissing but neither has the breath - it’s too intimate, too close, small movements in a quiet space. Jesse’s mouth is pressed to Angela’s neck, not coordinated for much more than the drag of lips against delicate skin. One of his hands slides from her hip inwards, fingers pushing aside damp cotton until they’re sliding slick through her and Angela’s head is thrown back on an unexpected gasp.

Orgasm comes easy as a sigh, honeyed warmth in waves through her body that just makes her wrap herself as close as she can for a minute around Jesse’s solidness, finally sitting back with a shaky sigh as he brushes her hair out of her face. After catching her breath, Angela sits up a little more, gets a little closer, lets her hips do the communicating for her as she kisses Jesse long and slow. 

Jesse groans, muffled where he’s pressed his face into Angela’s collarbone. She scratches her fingernails through his hair as he shakes himself apart inside of her, narrowing her eyes at her two cats that are watching them with wide yellow-green eyes at the top of the stairs. 

She flicks a hand at them, hissing under her breath. The movement is turned into stroking the side of Jesse’s face as he muzzily looks up at her. “Good?” she asks as she leans down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Mmm,” he rumbles in reply, only to be echoed by a grumble from his stomach as he kisses her back. “Food, maybe?” 

They disentangle themselves, Angela’s knees impolitely reminding her of every year of her age, and clean up unhurriedly. The food reheats as they drink wine that one of Angela’s patients gave her, and the storm outside rages on.

In the morning Angela wakes up relatively late for her - that is, the sun is actually visible in the sky. She has the day off, and is prepared to laze around for most of it. She’s alone in bed, and the sweats and shirt that Jesse had borrowed are in her hamper.

There’s hot coffee in the pot and a note under a mug already filled with her preferred amount of sugar in Jesse’s jagged writing. Angela reads it, unaware of the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

He had an early appointment to get to, but he’s sure they’ll see each other later in the week, the note says.

Unfortunately, he’s right.

-x-x-x-x-x-

“Can you go and check on Jesse?”

Angela blinks and pulls her head away from the phone to stare at it for a moment, aware of the futility of the gesture. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Jesse, you know, the guy you occasionally bump uglies with? The one that lives in my house? Go check on him,” Genji says breezily, with his usual lack of regard for anyone else’s schedule or motivation.

“You’re aware that I’m a doctor, you know. With a full time job. And as just stated you _live_ with the man, talk to him yourself. And what do you even mean, check on him?”

Genji sighs. “I’m out of town for a week, and when I left he didn’t...look good? Like he was hungover, but I don’t think he was drinking. Anyways I tried calling him but his phone is still fried from when he went to visit you,” Angela rolls her eyes at the transparent ploy at sympathy. “Listen - I wouldn’t bother you except you know he’s shit at taking care of himself. You remember,” Genji pauses for dramatic effect, “the appendix incident.”

Angela lets out a sigh of her own. Jesse had been about five hours from his appendix bursting because he thought it was indigestion from some horrific cheese-and-corn concoction Jack had come up with. She’d been on duty when he’d come in - it hadn’t been a good night. “Fine, fine.”

“You’re the best, I owe you one, bye!” 

With a roll of her eyes Angela hangs up. She tries Jesse’s number out of curiosity, but it goes straight to voicemail. She taps her phone against her chin for a moment. Genji’s histrionic on the best of days, but she heard real concern in his voice. And he’s certainly right about Jesse taking poor care of himself.

Stripping off her scrubs, Angela goes to put on normal clothes. It’s a good thing Genji caught her on an early shift, she definitely would have ignored his call if she’d still been at work.

-x-x-x-x-x-

There’s no answer at her knock, so Angela stands on tiptoes to grab the spare key from where it’s hidden above the doorframe. Inside it’s dark, the air oddly heavy. There’s no answer to her greeting, so she toes off her mud-caked boots and pads quietly inside.

No one would ever call Jesse and Genji neat freaks, but they both have enough friends and like getting laid enough that their apartment tends to be relatively clean. Now though, there’s clothing tossed here and there, a few thankfully empty bottles laying on their sides on the floor. 

“Jesse?” There’s a lump on the couch in front of the television, which is silently playing an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Angela frowns as she looks at what’s visible of Jesse’s face and hopes it’s the flickering light from the tv that makes him look so wan.

“ ‘Ngie?” Jesse mutters as he squints up at her, the overhead lights making him blink. 

“How long have you felt like this?” Angela asks, already pulling her thermometer out of her bag and clicking a cap on it before shoving it in his ear.

Jesse makes a face at the intrusion and the question both, before saying grumpily, “I’m fine, just not feelin’ up for much right now.”

A beep, and Angela is frowning down at the thermometer’s display. “You have a fever of a hundred and three, that’s far from being fine.” She backs up a step automatically as Jesse hacks a cough into the blanket wrapped around himself. “You likely have the flu, we’ve been having dozens of cases come into the ER. Did you get a shot this year?”

Jesse snuffles, sounding petulant as he says, “I was going to get around to it.”

“You spend all day with your hands on people. You’re good about cleanliness but you never know if they are.” Angela sighs, her hands on her hips, looking around her with a critical eye. “I’m going to kill Genji for leaving you.”

“I was fine when he left!” Jesse protests, struggling to sit up. Angela watches him impassively until he gives up and slumps back against the couch. 

“Mmm hmm.”

“I was! He left before I saw you last, anyways.”

“Okay, fine. When was the last time you drank something?”

Jesse looks blank before stuttering something out that Angela cuts off with a hand. “Sit there, don’t move. Not that you could,” she mutters to herself as she makes her way to the kitchen. The fridge has little in it but beer, the dried out remnants of Jesse’s pad see ew from a few days before, and something green that she’s desperately hoping started life out as guacamole. 

With a sigh she pours a glass of water, bringing it out to Jesse who’s already fallen asleep again. She wakes him with gentle fingers stroking his face, brow wrinkling at how hot and dry his skin is. Jesse nods as she tells him to finish the glass, clutching at it with both hands like a child. 

Angela gets up and pulls out her phone, wandering into Jesse’s bedroom. She wrinkles her nose at the smell and starts to tug the sheets off with one hand, typing with her other hand and filling out the form for time off. After hitting send, she dials the number for the reception desk at work.

“Hello, County Medical, how can I help you?” It’s an unexpected but familiar voice.

“Baptiste?”

“Angela! How are you, you’re done for the day, yes?”

Yanking the fitted sheet off with a grunt she hopes didn’t transmit, Angela replies, “Yes, I was calling because I need to take a few days off. Family emergency. Where’s Mitzi?” The receptionist had been at the hospital for decades before Angela got there, and if she ever retired Angela was sure the place would fall into chaos.

“She’s gone for the day, her daughter is graduating from somewhere or other. It’s slow today so we’re just trading off being on the floor and at the desk.” Baptiste clears his throat. “You said it was a family emergency?”

He knows Angela well enough that she doesn’t have any family. Neither does he - they’d started at the hospital at the same time and bonded over being orphans from opposite sides of the world that had found their solace in fixing people.

Angela sighs. “So to speak. Jesse is quite ill with the flu - if his fever gets any higher I may bring him in - and his roommate is gone for a while.”

Baptiste lets out a snort of derision. He and Genji have a - history. A lot of people have a history with Genji, at that. 

“It’s not his fault.”

“Uh huh. Just leaving Jesse to rot there, eh.”

“What about Jesse?” a voice pipes up, and Angela sighs. 

“What are you doing there, Sombra?”

“Just here to unfuck what some newbie doctor decided to do to the medication tracker system,” she says cheerfully into the phone. “Gramma and Grandpa will live to take their meds another day.”

“And now she’s just hanging around here so she doesn’t have to go back to work,” Baptiste says as Sombra makes a noise of agreement in the background.

“Actually...hold on a moment.” Angela walks quickly back into the living room, casting a quick look at Jesse who’s fast asleep with the empty glass clutched in his fingers. She roots through her bag until she pulls out her wallet and flips through it. “Could you do me a favor?”

“Depends.” Sombra, woman of many talents, never does anything for free.

“It’s for Jesse.”

“Then fine.” Except when it’s for Jesse.

“Write this down.” Angela rattles off a list of groceries. “If you could pick those up and bring them over to Jesse and Genji’s I’d be grateful. I have cash to pay you back, I just don’t want to leave him alone.”

“Sure, sure. Be there in a bit.” 

“Thank you, really. Baptiste, it’ll be okay if I’m out for a few days?”

“Sure,” he says genially. “A batch of residents just got assigned, so if anything we have more vaguely inept hands than we really need. You want me to call Ana?”

“No, I have to call her for a different reason anyways. Thank you, though.”

“Tell Jesse I hope he feels better. Sombra left already, so she should be there soon.”

“Thank you, night,” she says and hangs up. With a sigh, she starts to gather up the bedclothes to shove them into the ancient washer. 

As much as she wants to say that Jesse was going to owe her after this, she can't help thinking that if she hadn't sent him out for food he wouldn't be this sick. Guilt makes her yank at the bedclothes harder than might be warranted. 

-x-x-x-x-x-

“Are you hungry? It wouldn’t be a problem to feed you as well.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Sombra says as she hops off of where she’s been perched on the kitchen table. “Hey, you mind if I do something real quick?” She’s twirling a wire stripper between her fingers that she seemingly plucked out of thin air.

Angela pauses with her hand in a cupboard. “Go...ahead?” she says dubiously. Generally it’s just good advice to let Sombra do what Sombra does. 

Half an hour later Angela is bringing out Gatorade and chicken broth to Jesse in the living room, and Sombra sits back from where she’s been rooting around in the wires under the television.

“You should have HBO and Showtime now, and I fixed how the cable was fuzzing out. Maybe now he’ll stop bitching about how he never saw the last season of Oz,” Sombra says with an air of satisfaction.

Angela can’t help but laugh to herself a bit. “Thank you, Sombra. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” She wakes Jesse with a careful hand. He waves fuzzily to Sombra before sliding off the edge of the couch so he can sit on the floor and lean over the coffee table.

Sombra looks at him contemplatively for a minute before disappearing into the kitchen. She returns with the receipt from the groceries, with her neat writing covering the back of it. Handing it to Angela, she rocks back on her heels for a moment.

“It’s comfort food,” she says abruptly. “I got the ingredients for it, just in case. I just - it’s good for the soul.” 

Angela nods, glancing down at the recipe - _arroz con leche y coco_ it says in small letters - “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

“You too, doc,” Sombra says with a quick smile before she’s out the door with, “Don’t overwork yourself,” fading into the distance. 

Angela makes herself a sandwich, eating it as she watches Jesse try to watch tv and keep himself from nodding off. The dryer goes off, and she makes the bed. Cracking the windows, she’s glad it’s not too cold so the air can clear a bit.

She gets Jesse to his feet, supports him as he unsteadily walks into the bedroom. Angela tucks him in, bottle of Gatorade on the nightstand next to a packet of Tylenol. 

“Stay with me,” Jesse murmurs through dry lips as Angela makes to leave.

“I’m not going to stay here and breathe your air and get sick myself,” she says, not unkindly.

“You had your flu shot. Now be a good nurse and tell me a bedtime story.”

“I’m a medical doctor, not a nurse, Jesse,” Angela says, but she’s still rounding the bed to climb in on the other side, on top of the covers. Jesse nestles close, his hot forehead resting against her arm until she lifts it and lets him curl up against her chest. She runs her fingers through tangled, sweat-matted hair, Jesse making small noises of contentment below.

“ ‘m serious, tell me a story.”

“I…” Angela trails off. She doesn’t know American stories - she spends virtually no time around children, having gotten her rotation in peds done as fast as humanly possible. “I don’t know any in English.”

“Tell me in French then,” he says sleepily.

“German. The fairy tales were always in German.” She looks down at Jesse, eyes sunken in and cheeks red with fever, and can’t stop herself from pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“Es war einmal ein kleines Mädchen namens Rotkäppchen…”

-x-x-x-x-x-

Angela is struggling to get the covers off of the couch cushions the next day - one night smelling Jesse’s sickness-sweat was enough for her - when she suddenly curses and starts searching for her phone.

“Hello?”

“Ana, it’s me. Could you do me a favor?” 

“A favor other than taking your shift today on short notice?”

A sigh. “I know. Thank you for that. But yes, another favor.”

Angela hears a familiar clink that she knows is Ana’s delicate china chiming as she pours tea. “What do you need?”

“I’m taking care of Jesse for a while, would you mind feeding my cats? They just need their water changed and more dry food dumped in, I cleaned their box just before I left.”

Ana takes a sip of tea. “How is he doing, by the way?”

Angela glances reflexively at where she can see Jesse snoring away in bed. “His fever’s up another degree, he mostly needs someone to just keep shoving fluids in him.”

“Hmm.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.” Ana has a tendency to mother everyone in her vicinity, whether they want it or not, and her brand of mothering is rather more blunt and brutal than soft and sweet.

There’s a reason Fareeha lives on the other side of town.

“Just the cats, please,” Angela continues. “The white one will run away, the tabby will want some pets. And perhaps the same in another two days? I’m hoping I’m not here that long, but who knows.” 

“All right, dear. Just let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, Ana. The key is where it always is.” Angela hangs up, wondering if this is what people with parents feel like. She’d call someone else but Ana lives just a block over and is her usual go-to for pet sitting.

She’s barely hung up when her phone rings again. Genji.

“I hope you know he was close to death when I got here.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Genji says with a laugh. Then: “Wait. Was he? I can’t tell the difference between your deadpan voice and your pissed off voice.”

“I’m exaggerating some, but he is very sick.”

“Ah, shit. You need me to come back?”

Regardless of how Genji can be...so very Genji, he adores Jesse and would indeed be back as soon as he could if Angela asked. “No, it’s all right. What are you doing, anyways?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about. It’s just...family things,” he says nonchalantly. As casual as he sounds, Angela has heard enough from Jesse to know that Genji’s family problems are not the usual family problems.

“Anything I can help with?” 

Genji gives a somewhat pained laugh. “As much as I wish you could, no. Listen - on top of the fridge is a box of crackers. There’s some cash in there, don’t spend your own money on him. And get some wine or something for dealing with his sick ass.” 

“Thank you,” Angela says, oddly touched. 

A voice snaps something in Japanese at Genji and he responds in kind before saying, “I need to go, but thanks again,” and hanging up. 

Some hours later Angela’s forced some more broth and a few popsicles down Jesse’s throat, and is staring into the now-stocked fridge wondering what she’ll have for lunch. Dinner? Somehow the sun is getting low in the sky and she hasn’t had anything but coffee and some pudding that Jesse turned down all day.

A knock on the door startles her out of her thoughts, and she cautiously goes to open it. The scent of peppers and spices fills the hallway, and Angela finds herself blinking at Jack.

“I brought all his favorites,” he says, holding up a tote bag that’s bulging with containers. 

Angela rubs her forehead. “It’s the flu, Jack. He can’t eat - any of this. It’s all I could do to keep broth in him, he tried crackers and they came right back up.”

One wouldn’t think that such a large man could resemble a kicked puppy so easily, and she’s already stepping forward to say, “I’m sure he’d be very grateful, it’s just...he can’t, right now. I’m really sorry.” 

“No, no, it’s okay. Here, have a burrito. Someone should eat it.” Jack presses a foil wrapped cylinder into her hands before lumbering back down the hallway.

“Thank you,” she calls after him, feeling like a bully even as she knows she’s being a good doctor.

Well, at least this takes care of the dinner question, she thinks as she sniffs. Mmm, carne asada. 

-x-x-x-x-x-

Angela is in bed with Jesse, he’s curled into her side and breathing wheezily into her shirt as a Cold Case Files podcast plays quietly. She runs her fingers through his hair over and over, thinking of how she needs to get him clean at some point. Shifting a little, she reluctantly relaxes back with a sigh as Jesse clutches her tighter to him, like an oversized teddy bear. 

Jesse isn’t whiny when he’s sick, much better than most of her patients at the hospital. Other than his constant insistence that he’s fine, he’ll get over it soon enough, he’s really quite an easy patient. He’s just...worryingly unlike himself. No jokes, no sly smiles, no stolen kisses. The illness has taken everything that’s distinctly _Jesse_ out of him, and Angela finds herself feeling his forehead and touching his hot cheeks even as she knows nothing has changed. 

They’re - 

Friends. 

With a few benefits not accorded to most platonic friendships, but still. 

Angela stares at the waterstained ceiling and wonders when she started to care this much.

Her daydreaming is interrupted by the door opening. “Hello?” she calls out, as she struggles to unentangle herself from the bedspread and Jesse. As sick as he is, he has a grip like a limpet and is big enough to hold her down by dead weight alone. 

Finally free, Angela staggers into the kitchen and stops short.

“No. Out.”

Gabriel ignores her as he pulls things out of a bag - is that a damned blender? - and sets them on the kitchen counter. 

“I already had this conversation with Jack -”

“Jack’s an idiot who’s never had anything worse than a cold in his life and doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of sick people.”

Angela crosses her arms and leans against the table. “And you do.”

“Better than him.”

“Not better than me.”

Gabriel turns, looks her over with measuring dark eyes. “No, but you’ve been running a one woman sick ward. Sit your ass down before you fall down.”

Angela takes her time pulling out a chair, making it clear that it’s her idea to sit. A bottle of wine - quite good, not the two buck chuck that Jesse usually supplies her with - is thumped down in front of her along with a coffee mug that tells her that ‘cowboy butts drive me nuts’. 

She sips her wine as she watches Gabriel dump tomatoes and onions and garlic into the blender before blitzing it all to oblivion. Leaving the mixture there, he roots around in the cupboard under the sink with a familiarity that makes Angela blink, until he pulls out a battered saucepan.

An almost nutty, toasty smell begins to fill the kitchen, and Angela leans forward. “What on earth are you doing to that pasta?” she asks curiously.

“What’s it look like.”

She rolls her eyes. This is why Gabriel annoys her. He’s one of the few people her doctor’s air of authority has never worked on - she blames too many years of his friendship with Ana. “I wasn’t aware pasta had to be, what. Roasted? Before you cooked it.”

“It does if you’re making this right.”

Gabriel dumps the blended mixture in with the pasta, adds broth and some spices. Covering the pot, he pulls out the chair across from Angela, then starts tapping away at his phone. After blinking at him, Angela goes back to drinking her wine. 

She’s never really understood their relationship, or how Jack plays into it, or even Genji’s role in the whole mess. It’s not really her business, she supposes. She only sees the lot of them when they intersect with work - more often than you’d think, given everyone’s jobs - and when Jesse hauls her to some get together or other.

Angela isn’t quite sure where she fits into Jesse’s life. She’s not sure if she minds - her job keeps her so busy that their odd little commitment-free relationship is pretty much the ideal setup for her.

And yet once again, Jesse’s dragged her in despite herself, despite her best intentions. 

The asshole.

Gabriel’s ladling soup into bowls and thunking one down in front of Angela, startling her out of her thoughts. 

“You’re not sick, put hot sauce on it,” he says, opening cabinets until he finds a bottle of Cholula and sets it in front of her. 

“What, no Valentina?” she says flippantly.

“Watch yourself, blondie,” Gabriel says, eyes narrowed. He sits down across from her again, spoons up a bit of soup, chews slowly.

Angela tries it. It’s delicious, in a soft, easy way. The kind of soup your mother would make in winter when you came in from running around outside. “Comfort food,” she finds herself saying. 

Gabriel gives a single nod as he eats, and they finish their meal in companionable silence. Angela collects their bowls and puts them in the sink, noting another bowl that had been set out. “Let’s put those muscles of yours to good use,” she says as she washes her hands. “If you can get him out into the living room, try and get him to eat some of this. I can change out his bedsheets.”

Without giving her an acknowledgement, Gabriel goes into Jesse’s bedroom. She hears a raspy “hey baby” that makes her pause for a moment with what she refuses to admit as jealousy before she goes back to washing the bowls. 

Gabriel carries Jesse into the living room, not showing any sign of strain despite the fact that Jesse’s as tall as he is. He returns a moment later to fetch a bowl of the soup, minus the hot sauce that he and Angela had used.

Angela changes the sheets out with the set she’d washed earlier, throws the soiled set into the washer. She throws away the empty Gatorade bottles, the split open blisterpacks of pills, the piles of tissues.

When she returns to the kitchen to shove everything into the trash and recycling, Gabriel is there washing out an empty bowl and putting the leftovers into mismatched storage containers.

“He ate it all?” Angela asks, half in surprise. Gabriel grunts an affirmative. That’s good, Jesse needs the calories. 

“Do you want him back in the bedroom?” Gabriel asks.

Angela pauses, biting her lip. If Gabriel’s here, she may as well make use of him. “Could you get him to the bathroom? He’s getting a bit - ripe.”

A short nod in response. “You need anything else? Groceries or whatever.”

She can’t help but smile a bit. Who knew, there’s some humanity to Gabriel Reyes after all. “Not today. Tomorrow perhaps. Although -” she goes over to the counter, flips through debris until she finds the recipe that Sombra had written down. “Do you know how to make this? Sombra said it would be good for him.”

Critical eyes move over the recipe before he tosses it aside with a scoff. “Sombra.”

“So...no?”

“So I’m not putting any fucking orange peel in my arroz, that fuckin’ weird little girl.” He crumples the receipt and tosses it aside. “Let’s move him and I’ll make it for you.”

“You don’t need the recipe?”

“Not for something I’ve been making for longer than that troublemaker’s been alive.”

Angela would believe his tone more if she hadn’t seen a stocking for Sombra hung up over Jack and Gabriel’s fireplace the previous Christmas.

A few minutes later she’s running a bath and Gabriel is setting Jesse gently down on the toilet seat. “You got this?” he asks, looking her over skeptically.

“Believe it or not, doctors move around patients larger and more recalcitrant than Jesse every day and live to tell the tale,” Angela says, letting Jesse rest his forehead against her sternum as she pulls his shirt off easily. 

Gabriel backs out with his hands up, closing the door halfway as he goes. 

Angela gets Jesse into the bath easily enough, and he slides right down into the water. She hauls him up, sighing as water splashes all over. With a glance out the half closed door that says Gabriel is grumpily banging pots and pans in the kitchen, Angela slips out of her clothes.

Despite Jesse’s wheezy protests that he’s fine, they both know he’ll drown given half a chance. Jesse and Genji’s ancient apartment has a thousand problems, but thankfully a large enough tub isn’t one of them. She eases herself behind Jesse, lets him lean back against her and murmur words she can’t understand before subsiding into a feverish half-sleep.

She lies back for a few minutes, feeling the cool of the water and the heat of Jesse’s skin. With a sigh she sits up a bit, finds a cup and a comb and some shampoo that smells way too expensive to be Jesse’s. 

Genji said he owed her, anyways. 

She washes her own hair first, slicks some rich conditioner - thank you again, Genji - in before clipping it up. Washing Jesse is like washing a very, very large child. She puts a hand over his eyes to keep the soap out, murmurs words of comfort she doesn’t realize are in German as the comb tugs at his hair, scrubs under his nails the best she can.

Letting the now-grey water out of the tub she refills it, clean and clear and too cool for her but Jesse sighs in pleasure as it washes over his feverish body. He leans back into her, would crush her were it not for the buoyant water. Angela has a hand draped over his chest, fingernails absently ruffling up and smoothing down his chest hair. She pokes at his soft cock with a toe, amusing herself by watching it bob this way and that in the water.

Jesse lets out a raspy snore.

There’s a knock on the half open door, Angela looks over to see Gabriel with his hand wrapped around the door’s edge. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, a faint smile on his face as he watches Jesse’s breath ripple the water.

Angela realizes she should probably feel awkward, naked around a man she barely likes let alone knows, but Jesse’s covering up all the important bits anyways.

“You two are good together,” Gabriel says quietly.

She almost wants to ask him to repeat it, half-sure she’s heard incorrectly, but is even more sure that he’d just give her an eyeroll in response. Instead she just blinks, the warmth of Jesse’s body-as-blanket and the long day making her sleepy. 

“The rice is in the fridge, don’t eat it until tomorrow, it needs to set up overnight.” Gabriel’s fingers flex on the door for a moment. “I’ll send Jack over with something edible.”

“Thank you, Gabriel,” she says softly, not wanting to disturb Jesse.

He gives one of those characteristic abrupt nods before vanishing. A few minutes later she hears the apartment door shut quietly.

She knows she’s going to have to scrub him down again, get him out, dry him off, somehow make it to the bedroom, but right now she’s just going to relax in the water. 

Jesse snores again.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Late the following night, Jesse is stretched out on the couch with his head in Angela’s lap and his feet wedged under Jack’s thigh. Jack had showed up with what looked like a convenience store’s full of sports drinks, along with a few containers of this and that which he was quick to reassure her Gabriel had made.

“He stress cooks,” Jack had said with a shrug. He then just...hadn’t left, and Angela was too tired to kick him out. She could squeeze perhaps one more day of skiving off of work and god only knew the favors she’d be owing Ana and Baptiste in the future. 

Well, perhaps not Ana as much. Angela was fairly sure who had sent Jack and Gabriel over - as much help as they’d been she still would have rather reached out herself instead of having them foisted on her.

Still. 

Jesse shifts about restlessly, and when he moves his head he leaves a damp patch behind. On the other side of the couch Jack is looking down dubiously at Jesse’s legs. 

“Is he supposed to be sweating this much?”

Angela feels Jesse’s forehead - slick and notably cooler. “His fever’s breaking. It’s a good thing.” She stretches, cracks her elbows. “Would you mind helping move him?”

They get Jesse - more than half asleep and unfortunately slippery - back into his bed. Jack leaves after making Angela promise to call if she needed help. 

After a half-assed attempt at cleaning the kitchen up, Angela crashes on the couch. It hasn’t been the most active thing, taking care of Jesse, but up until now he hadn’t been getting better. She’d been watching his temperature like a hawk - if it had gone up any she’d be hauling him in to work. With any luck, the worst of it is all over.

One minute Angela is blearily watching the television and wondering which of the beauty pageant contestants is going to be killed next, and the next she’s blinking her eyes in the weak morning sunlight and wondering what the clattering in the kitchen is.

“Is there any coffee?” Jesse asks raspily, poking through cabinets as Angela shoves her messy hair out of her face.

“No, and it wouldn’t matter if it did, the last thing you need is coffee. Sit down.” Jesse meekly obeys as Angela gets her thermometer.

“A hundred. The best it’s been in days. How do you feel?”

Jesse holds a hand up in front of her, and it’s visibly shaky. “Like I got run over by a truck, but also like my stomach’s gonna eat through to my spine.”

“That’s good. Let me heat up some soup for you.”

His nose twitching as Angela pours soup into a pot on the stove, Jesse peers at the container. “Did Gabriel make this?”

“By barging his way in, yes.”

“Aw man, I must have really been out of it. I try and get him to make me sopa de estrellitas all the time and he refuses, says it’s a special occasion thing.”

Angela leans back, elbows on the counter. “People were worried about you. Gabriel, Jack. Sombra. Genji.”

Jesse looks at her, eyes still sunken and fever bright but with some of the usual sparkle back in them. “You were the one that took care of me, though.”

She shifts, suddenly uncomfortable. “I was the one that sent you out into that weather. It wasn’t -”

“No, shut up. I know you should be at work right now and instead you’re sleepin’ on my nasty-ass couch. And you know that’s not how viruses work, you’ve told me enough times.”

“I washed the cushion covers.”

“Yeah, still gross. C’mere,” Jesse says, his arms open. When Angela doesn’t move he flaps his arms weakly. “Unless you want me standin’ up and falling on my face, come over here.” 

Angela walks over, lets Jesse wrap his arms around her and hug her as tightly as he can. She strokes a hand over his tangled hair, a habit now ingrained from the past few days.

“If I had any energy I’d eat you out right now,” Jesse says, muffled into her stomach

“You’d fall asleep before you could finish,” Angela says with a sympathetic pat to his shoulder. 

“You’re tellin’ me,” Jesse pulls back. “For the first time in my life I’m too tired to even think of jackin’ off.” 

“Not to mention you’re dehydrated, and you really don’t want to know what that does to anything that comes out of you.”

Jesse looks horrified.

“Hey, you brought it up.”

“Ugh. Stop bein’ a doctor for a minute, Jesus.” His hands are on her waist, wide and familiar and comfortable. Angela leans into his grip for a moment before stopping herself - Jesse’s still weak right now, he can’t easily take her weight like usual. 

“Let’s just eat some soup and whatever else is in the fridge and watch some bullshit tv for a bit, yeah? You goin’ in to work?”

“Today’s my last day off.”

“Then try and goddamn relax a bit after takin’ care of my ass for days. Unsolved Mysteries is callin’ our names.”

“I don’t know why you watch that, there’s no resolution. It’s frustrating.”

“Exactly! It’s _unsolved,_ that’s the entire point. You get to _speculate._ ” 

They bicker back and forth, interrupted by Jesse’s glee at finding the rice pudding and then explaining the differences between Gabriel and Sombra’s recipes - something involving citrus and amounts of coconut milk - until Angela’s ready to throw the entire dish out the window.

And so they eat and lean towards each other bit by bit until they’re slumped together, and Angela is warm and full and really not quite awake yet, especially not with Jesse’s arm around her and his thumb rubbing circles into her shoulder.

Maybe it is something she could get used to, could let herself have, she thinks to herself as she lets herself drift off to the murmur of Jesse’s voice.

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/thereweregiants)


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